Old Habits
by Athena Alexandria
Summary: What happens when Kate's fugitive instincts lead her to make one of the biggest mistakes of her life? Set during Lighthouse. AU. Jate.
1. Chapter 1

The idea of Kate shooting Jack is too good not to build on, so I decided to write a mini angst fic about it. At the moment it's only two or three chapters but I might add a few more depending on interest. Just a cool little fact: I walked along that trail last year on the Lost tour. It's the same place where they filmed scenes from Exodus and Live Together, Die Alone. It's actually in the botanical gardens behind the cemetery where they filmed Jae Lee's funeral in The Glass Ballerina. ;)

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OLD HABITS

Chapter 1.

"Jack?" Kate cried, confused, when she spotted him on the path above her, lowering the arm that held her pistol.

Then she saw it.

In what seemed like slow motion, his hand drifted up to the place where crimson bloomed across the navy of his shirt; when he looked up again, he was frowning, as if he couldn't quite believe what had happened either. She barely registered Hurley's presence beside him as she stood frozen in horror, watching Jack stumble backwards before his legs finally gave out, causing him to crumple into the dirt.

"Jack!" This couldn't be real. It was worse than any nightmare her mind could come up with.

She let the gun slide harmlessly from her fingers, into the stream, and raced up the bank, falling to her knees at his side.

"Hey," he murmured, his eyes finding hers as she hovered over him, pulling his head into her lap; he tried to smile at her, but it looked more like a grimace when he gritted his teeth, sucking in a laboured breath.

"I shot you," she pointed out, wondering how he could still be so happy to see her under the circumstances. Somehow that made what she'd done to him seem worse.

He responded with a pained chuckle that turned into a groan, though she wasn't sure how he could find any of this funny. "I noticed," he agreed, craning his neck to examine the wound that had opened in his stomach. If she were him, she would know how bad it was, whether he'd escaped significant organ damage, but to her, it was terrifyingly deep and bloody. He probed it with trembling fingers, fishing around for the bullet, crying out when it became too much and he almost blacked out.

Tears streamed from his eyes and she wanted to cry too. "What were you doing out here?" she asked him, caressing his face to soothe him, leaving a smear of blood across his cheek. She felt a sudden burst of fury at him for sneaking up on her without any regard for his own safety. She was alone in the jungle where people had tried to kill them countless times: who wouldn't be a little jumpy? "I thought you were gonna stay at the temple?"

For one devastating moment, she was sure that he must have been looking for her. She knew exactly how it would have played out: Jin would have returned without her and given his account of how she'd taken out both of their captors and gone rogue and Jack, refusing to believe that she would do so without a good reason, would have charged off into the jungle after her before the Others caught up with her. At least that was what the old Jack – _her_ Jack – would have done. She could never tell how this new one was going to react.

"Jacob," was all he could manage before his eyes closed; it was all she needed to hear to understand. This was never about her. He was just as surprised by their encounter as she was.

"Jack," she whispered, repeating his name louder and with increasing desperation when he didn't respond. "Jack, stay with me, okay?" There was so much blood. It was everywhere: on their hands, staining their clothes… She didn't know how he could still have any left, and yet by some miracle he kept on bleeding, with no sign of running out any time soon. She pressed down on the wound with both hands but it continued to seep through her fingers.

There had to be a way to stop it.

"We have to get him back to the temple," she announced when all of a sudden it hit her, lifting her gaze to Hurley's for the first time. If the Others could fix Sayid… She forced herself not to think about Juliet, who now lay buried in a shallow grave a few miles from the cemetery. He was going to be okay. She was going to make sure of it.

"But we were supposed to…" Hurley stammered, staring down at Jack in disbelief. "Jacob—"

"Needs him _alive_," she finished, fighting back bitter tears. What use was he to anyone like this? "Please, Hurley. Please help me." There was no way she would be able to carry him there on her own.

As she glanced down at Jack again, so pale and still that he could be dead already if it wasn't for the subtle rise and fall of his chest, she began to cry in earnest, violent, wrenching sobs at the hopelessness of the situation. She'd known when they came back that one – or even both – of them might not make it, but never in her wildest dreams had she imagined that she would be the one to do it. He was a leader, a _hero_: his death was supposed to _mean_ something. An iciness crept into her heart as she wondered if Sawyer would be glad. He wanted him to suffer.

She stopped crying when she felt a hand on her shoulder, looking up from Jack tearfully to see that Hurley had come over to join them, watching the scene before him with sad eyes. "What do you need me to do?" he asked.

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Next chapter: Kate and Hurley take Jack back to the temple... ;)


	2. Chapter 2

Thanks for the reviews. ;)

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Chapter 2.

"This way," Hurley said when they finally came to the big tree, and rather than stop, Kate continued around the perimeter of the temple.

"We're not going in the secret entrance," she told him, wishing that she hadn't lost their only gun in case they needed to fight their way back inside, although she wasn't sure that she trusted herself with it anymore. "We're going in through the front door."

She could see that he wasn't too thrilled about this idea, but he knew better than to argue with her. "Okay, then," he agreed, lumbering after her with Jack cradled in his arms like a rag doll.

Apparently the guards were less concerned with them coming in than going out because they didn't say a word as they passed, though their eyes followed them curiously.

Once inside the main room of the temple, Hurley lowered Jack carefully to stone floor next to the steps that led down into the pool. Sayid and Miles were sitting together, leaning against the pillars but they both jumped up in alarm when they saw the blood still flowing from the wound on Jack's stomach. She must have hit a major artery.

"What happened to him?" the Japanese man asked, addressing the question to Hurley as he emerged from the recesses of the temple.

"I shot him," Kate confessed, her voice wobbling slightly, struggling to maintain her composure when all eyes turned to her, shock and incredulity evident in their friends' expressions.

He went down on one knee beside Jack, pressing two fingers to his throat to check his pulse. "He is dying," he announced dispassionately as he drew them back, and Kate squeezed her eyes shut, feeling a fresh tear slide down her cheek at hearing her worst fear confirmed.

"So was Sayid when we brought him here," she reminded him, her confidence beginning to waver now that she was here asking their former enemies to do what up until yesterday would have seemed impossible.

Dogen exchanged a look with his translator before turning back to her. "I'm sorry, but there is nothing we can do."

"Jacob asked to see him," she told them, hoping that that name, at least, would get their attention. "Doesn't that mean he's special?"

She expected them to react in some way, but the Japanese man remained unmoved. "There are other candidates," he said, though he didn't specify what for.

But there was only one Jack. "That's it?" she insisted, frustrated by his coldness. "You go out of your way to heal Sayid, but you're not gonna lift a finger to help Jack?" She thought she finally understood how Sawyer felt, why he was so angry; as much as she cared for Sayid, he was right: there were other people more deserving than him, Jack included. He had the most unselfish heart of anyone she knew: surely that counted for something?

"We should not have meddled with the island's intentions," was all the Japanese man sad by way of explanation, glancing in Sayid's direction.

This couldn't be Jack's destiny; the one he'd come back here for. "You think _this_ is what the island intended?" she spat. "It was an accident!"

This seemed to stir the faintest trace of emotion in the Japanese man. "You must understand that if we do what you are asking, he may not be the same."

So far Sayid appeared to be fine, but even if he wasn't, she'd made up her mind as soon the moment she heard that Jack was dying. "I don't care!" she sobbed. At least he would be alive. "You have to save him! You can't just let him _die_!"

"You love him," the Japanese man said, cocking his head to study her as if seeing her for the first time.

"Yes," she agreed simply. Now was not the time for stubbornness. Why hadn't she told him that back at the Swan hatch before everything went to hell? "He's my…" She trailed off when she realised that there were no words for what they were. It was beautiful and painful and even though he broke her heart, he was the only one who'd ever been able to fix it. "He's my everything." He was all she had left.

The the Japanese man glanced over at his translator again, who nodded. "Very well," he agreed.

Kate had spent the trek back trying to convince herself that it was going to work, but all of a sudden, she couldn't stop herself from asking: what happened if it didn't? Worse: what if in trying to save him, she ended up killing him? There was no way of knowing whether or not he was strong enough to survive on his own until the island healed him, and if he didn't… at least she would have him for a while longer. "Will it… Will it be like Sayid?" she asked, but they ignored her, focusing instead on preparing the ritual.

As she watched the Japanese man nick his palm, letting his blood trickle into the water, she felt a shudder go through her. There was something almost sinister about the whole thing. It gave her the creeps.

She forced herself to think about Jack: the reason she was doing this. If everything went according to plan, then she would have a second chance with him and she was determined not to screw it up again. Maybe they could even find Claire together and finally put the past behind them.

When the Japanese man gave the order, the same group of men came forward, lifting Jack's prostrate form and carrying him into the pool. As one of them pushed his head underwater, keeping it submerged just as they had Sayid's, Kate found that she couldn't watch, turning away towards the window and covering her ears so that she wouldn't have to listen to him thrashing when he woke up and realised that he couldn't breathe.

Not for the first time, she wondered if she was doing the right thing, but she consoled herself with the thought that it was what he would have done if the situation were reversed. It seemed to go on forever, though in theory she knew that it couldn't be any longer than it took for Sayid since they were using the same hourglass, but finally the temple was silent.

"It is done," the Japanese man said; Kate turned back around to see two of the men supporting Jack, limp as a fresh corpse between them as they dragged him back out, dumping him unceremoniously at the edge of the pool.

As soon as they released him, Kate ran to his side, surprised to discover that, rather than being dead like she was afraid of, he still had a weak pulse, soft but steady under her fingertips. When she peeled back his wet shirt, exposing the wound, she saw that it was beginning to clot: at least he'd finally stopped bleeding.

"What now?" she asked the Japanese man once she was able to tear her attention away from Jack. It couldn't be that easy… could it?

"Now we wait…"

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Next chapter: Jack wakes up, but is he 'infected' like Sayid? ;)


	3. Chapter 3

Thanks for the reviews. I'm still trying to decide what I'm going to do with all my Lost fics now that the show ending so I put a new poll on my profile. Let me know if there's anything you'd particularly like to see explored in a fic though because I'm hearing a lot of people say they're getting frustrated with this dry spell... ;)

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Chapter 3.

And so they waited.

Kate was afraid to stray too far from Jack's side while he was still so unstable so she remained with him at the edge of the pool, concentrating all of her energy on doing what she could to make him more comfortable to avoid thinking about what happened next.

She stripped off his soaked t-shirt – stained red with his own blood – to allow her to keep an eye on his wound, balling it up and easing it beneath his head as a kind of makeshift pillow. When she cupped his cheek in her palm, he felt warmer than he had the last time she'd checked – feverish – so she dribbled water from her canteen carefully into his mouth, wiping away the beads of sweat that formed at his hairline.

She was so focused on him that she didn't notice Dogen approaching until he was standing right in front of them. "It appears it did not work," he announced, gazing down at Jack – still motionless in her arms – with an impassive expression. "He was most likely too weak when he arrived. I doubt he will last the night."

Until that moment, she had been determined to take the fact that his wound had sealed and he still had a pulse as a good sign. "How can you even say that?" she snapped, drawing him protectively against her. He wasn't dead yet. "It'll work. Any minute now he's gonna wake up."

Ignoring him, she returned her attention to Jack. "C'mon, Jack," she pleaded. "You can do this. Just wake up. Please wake up."

Without meaning to, she started to cry again; she tensed when another shadow fell over her, convinced that it was Dogen coming back for him, but it was just Hurley this time. "Uh, Kate? Why don't you let someone else take over for a while? I'll sit with him until you get back," he volunteered.

She could see that he was concerned; she took a deep breath, drying her tears with the back of her hand. "Thanks, Hurley," she told him, touched by his offer, "but I have to be here in case..." She closed her eyes, willing herself not to give up hope, just like she knew that he wouldn't if it were her. "In case something happens."

"You heard what the Chinese dude said," Hurley insisted, sadness and pity mingling in his voice. "Jack's—"

"Don't you dare even say it!" she cried, cutting him off before he could utter the word she couldn't even bring herself to think yet. Why was everyone so quick to write him off? There was still time for him to wake up.

Hurley looked taken aback by her anger. "Sorry, Kate. I was just trying to help."

She hadn't meant to be so harsh towards him when he'd done so much for them already, carrying Jack back for her when she couldn't. "I know," she agreed with a heavy sigh but before she could apologise, the body in her arms gave a violent spasm and jerked upright, startling them both. "Jack?" Even though she'd spent the last few hours praying for exactly this – or maybe because she had – she didn't know if she could trust what she was seeing.

She watched his eyes dart around wildly as if he'd just woken from a nightmare, the furrows in his brow deepening at the sight of the fresh pink scar on his stomach. "Don't try to sit up," she warned him when he moved to examine it, taking hold of his shoulders and guiding him back down, relieved that he didn't make any attempt to fight her on it. There was so much she needed to tell him but she didn't want to overwhelm him while he was still so weak so she decided to keep things light between them. "You had me worried for a while there."

Her questions about how much he remembered were answered when he asked, "Am I…? I'm alive?" almost as if he couldn't believe it himself.

"Yeah," she agreed, laughing through the tears that spilled onto her cheeks. "You're alive." On impulse, she leant over him, resting her head against his and caressing the side of his face with her fingers. She placed a lingering kiss on his forehead before pulling away to look at him. He didn't seem any different. Maybe Dogen was wrong about him not coming back the same.

He turned his head to survey his surroundings again, taking note of them this time. "You brought me back to the temple," he said as understanding about what had happened dawned on him.

"I had to," she insisted before he could voice his protest. How could he argue with what she'd done he'd already risked everything to save Sayid? "Otherwise you would have died."

Still, she could see that something about it was troubling him. "After they brought Sayid back, Dogen told me he was 'infected'. That there was a darkness growing inside him," he confessed. "He said the same happened to... to Claire." She felt her mouth open in shock at hearing his sister mentioned, but she pushed all thoughts of her out of her head for the time being, forcing herself to listen to what he was saying. "What if…?"

"It won't," she assured him. He was a good man: she'd never known anyone as determined to do right as he was; the idea that he could be claimed by the forces of evil was inconceivable. "You're gonna be fine. We're gonna be fine."

"But if it does," he insisted, " I want you to promise me that you won't let me hurt anyone." While it was true that she would do anything for him, she wasn't sure that she would be able to stop him if it ever came to that. Not if he was asking her what she thought he was asking. He reached for her hand, his eyes locking eyes urgently on hers. "Promise me, Kate."

"Okay, I promise," she agreed hastily when she saw that he wasn't going to let it go until she did. With any luck, he wouldn't hold her to it. "Now you just relax, okay? You need to focus on getting your strength up."

She uncapped her canteen and placed it to his lips and he took a low swallow. "I knew you were mad at me…" he teased her as she put it away, trying to turn it into a joke, but it was still too raw to be funny.

"I'm not mad at you, Jack," she corrected him. "I was, but I'm not anymore." All that mattered now was that he was safe.

"I can't say I'd blame you," he continued softly, "I almost got us all killed. Juliet is dead because of me."

"That wasn't your fault," she insisted. She made a choice, just like they all had. "You couldn't have known that was gonna happen. If anyone should be sorry, it's me."

"Kate..."

She shook her head. "No, Jack, I'm sorry." Her voice broke as a sob bubbled up in her throat. "I'm so sorry I shot you." She buried her face in his chest and he lifted his hands to cradle the back of her skull, holding her against him while she sobbed into it in a mixture of guilt and relief.

"Hey," he whispered. "It's okay. It was an accident."

But a moment later, she heard Dogen shout something in Japanese, and a pair of strong hands closed over her arms, pulling her off of him. "What're you doing?" she cried when two of his men hauled Jack to his feet, half marching, half dragging him out of the temple. "Where are you taking him?" He was still in no condition to be going anywhere when he couldn't even stand on his own.

"There is a test we must perform, to determine whether or not the ritual was… successful," Dogen explained in the same business-like tone.

Jack was alive, wasn't he? Wasn't that proof that whatever they'd done to him had worked? "What kind of test?" she demanded.

"It is perhaps best if you do not know," Dogen said, the words filling her with fresh fear for him. "If he passes, he will be returned to you just as he is now."

"And if he fails?" she pressed, struggling against the hands that continued to hold her back. "What happens if he fails?"

"Then we will be forced to take… action."

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Next chapter: Things can go either way from here so I'm going to leave it up to you guys to tell me whether or not you think Jack should be evil... ;)


	4. Chapter 4

Thanks for the reviews. As you can see, I finally got around to finishing this. ;)

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Chapter 4.

Kate tried to shut out what was happening, but the sound of Jack crying out in agony somewhere deep inside the temple made her feel as though her own heart were being torn in two; she wished she understood what they were doing to him and what exactly they thought it was going to prove.

With Dogen and his translator gone, and the remaining men outside guarding the exits, there was no one to stop her from following them, so when she couldn't stand it any longer, she got up from the ledge she was sitting on and snuck out into the narrow passageway where she'd seen them take Jack.

There was light streaming from a doorway at one end; she crept towards it, careful not to make too much noise even though she doubted anyone would hear footsteps over Jack's screams, keeping to the shadows in case anyone came to the door.

When she reached it, she peered around the corner into a large chamber filled with bonsais. Jack was there, strapped to table hooked up to what appeared to be some kind of ancient lie detector with restraints across his forehead, hands and feet. Dogen was looming over him with his back to her; she couldn't make out what he was doing so she tiptoed further inside, darting behind a stone pillar while everyone's eyes were on Jack.

This time, she saw that he was adjusting a series of wires connected to the hairs on Jack's chest. Once he was satisfied with the arrangement, he cranked a handle on the side and the machine roared to life, sending enough voltage into Jack's body to make him jump off the table.

From her new vantage point behind the column, she watched with a growing sense of horror as Dogen yanked the wires loose, seizing an iron poker instead. But before she had time to register what he was about to do with it, he shoved the tip into the fire and pressed it into the sensitive skin on Jack's stomach.

"Stop it!" she screamed, springing from her hiding place when he howled in fresh agony. "Can't you see you're hurting him?"

Dogen's head whipped around at the sound of her voice. "Get her out of here!" he ordered when he saw her standing near the entrance. She tried to make a break for Jack but before she could reach him, two men who until then had been lurking on the periphery of the room rushed forward to grab her, one pinning her arms to her sides while the other caught her legs to keep her from kicking.

"No!" she cried, fighting to escape. "I'm not going anywhere until you let him go!"

Jack lifted his head, craning his neck until she could see her. "Kate, go back outside and wait," he rasped, his eyes pleading with her to co-operate before they hurt her too.

"I'm not leaving you." If it weren't for her, none of this would be happening.

"I mean it, Kate," he insisted. "You don't need to see this."

It wasn't like him to sound so defeated. Why wasn't he doing anything to stop it? "Jack…"

He opened his mouth to protest again, but just then, the machine began to do something.

"What is that? What's happening?" she asked Dogen in alarm. She couldn't tell by his expression if it was good or bad.

He held up a hand to silence her. "Release the girl," he ordered.

At his command, the men restraining Kate dropped her, the momentum of the fall sending her sprawling onto her hands and knees on the cold stone floor. She was still shaking so hard that it took her a moment to recover her sense of equilibrium and then she scrambled back to her feet, running to Jack's side.

"Are you okay?" she asked him as she set to work freeing first his hands, then his feet. She checked him over with her eyes, swallowing the bile that rose in her throat as they lingered over the charred flesh where Dogen had branded him. "What did they do to you?" How many scars did he have now because of this island?

"Hey, it's okay," he whispered, reaching up to touch her cheek and it wasn't until he brushed the tears away with his thumb that she realised that she was crying. "I already got shot today. This is nothing."

"This is not 'nothing', Jack," she argued, helping him to sit up. "They _tortured_ you."

"We had to make sure he had not been …claimed… like the others," Dogen chimed in, rescuing a print out from the machine.

"Claimed by what?" she pressed. Was he trying to tell them that whatever he believed had 'infected' Sayid and Claire had gotten Jack too?

"Him."

Kate knew better than to ask which 'him' he was talking about. Something told her that she wouldn't understand his answer. "And has he? Been claimed?" she demanded, even though she wasn't sure that she wanted to know after what he'd made her promise.

Dogen was silent as he considered the paper in his hands. "No," he agreed finally. "There is no darkness in him – only good. That is why Jacob chose him."

While Jack's inherent goodness wasn't exactly news to her – or anyone else who knew him – this didn't stop relief from flooding through her on learning that he'd passed. That he was still her Jack. "Did you hear that?" she asked him with a tearful laugh. "I don't have to shoot you again." She turned away from him long enough to speak to Dogen. "If he's not evil, does that mean he can go?"

"He must remain in the temple," Dogen reminded them. "You and your friends are still under our protection."

She found Jack's t-shirt draped over the back of a chair. "I doubt I'd make it very far," he joked with a weak chuckle, raising his arms for her gingerly, allowing her to dress him the way she had Aaron.

He still had a bunch of medical supplies in his backpack. She might be able to find some cream for his burns. "C'mon." She wrapped her arm around his waist, pulling one of his around her shoulders to steady him. "Let's get you out of here." If they couldn't leave the temple, then she at least wanted to be out of that room.

As they walked out of Dogen's chamber together, with her supporting the bulk of his weight, she was struck by a sense of déjà vu.

"Looks like you're stuck being my nurse again," he teased her, seeming to share her thoughts.

"It's hard to believe we're back here," she agreed. "It feels like everything and nothing has changed." In the three years that had passed since that day, they'd left the island and come back, gotten engaged and split up, travelled all the way back to the seventies only to find themselves right back where they'd started.

Neither of them spoke for a moment as they considered this and then Jack asked, "Did you mean it?"

"Did I mean what?"

"What you said out there."

"About not being mad at you anymore? Of course I did, Jack," she assured him. She wasn't sure when she'd forgiven him but she had. Maybe once she realised that he was right. "And even if I didn't, I would never _shoot_ you." He cast a sidelong glance at her. "Well not on purpose," she amended, ducking her head, her face flaming with mortification, and he laughed, the sound warming her heart after spending the past few hours convinced that herself that she would never hear it again.

"That's good to know, but that wasn't what I was talking about that," he confessed. "When Dogen asked if you loved me, you said yes. Did you really mean that?"

She was so stunned that it took her a moment to recover her voice. "You were unconscious," she reminded him. "Are you telling me you heard that?"

He seemed to read her hesitation as reluctance to hurt his feelings. "Look, you don't have to answer," he told her. "The important thing is that it worked."

He was letting her off the hook, but after what she'd just been through, she wasn't sure that she wanted to be let off. "Yes, I do," she announced, turning to face him.

He looked surprised. "Yes, you have to answer? Or yes, you still love me?" His voice faltered on the last words.

"Both." She felt herself tear up again as she added, "I don't know what I would've done if that bullet had killed you. If _I_ had killed you." The idea was too horrifying to even contemplate and yet it seemed like that was all she'd done since their disastrous encounter in the jungle. "If anyone should be mad, it's you. You have every right to hate me for what I did."

He folded her in his arms, pulling her against his chest. "I could never hate you, Kate," he told her softly. "I love you." He kissed her hair, resting his cheek against it. "I never stopped."

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I know some of you will be disappointed that I bypassed the Dark!Jack route but the general consensus was that people wanted a happy ending. ;)


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